Veggie Tales: Madame Blueberry

Reviewed by: Ceili Marshall
CONTRIBUTOR

Moral Rating:	Excellent!
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience:	5 to Adult
Genre:	Computer Animation
Length:	30 min.
Year of Release:	1996
USA Release:

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They’ve done it again. The incredibly creative people at Big Idea have created yet another episode of the Veggie Tales video series—this time focusing on the subject of selfishness vs. thankfulness. They’ve also crossed the gender line by involving a female title character who, incidentally, really is a BLUE berry.

Madame Blueberry is a berry who has all the things she could ever want, but her neighbors have COOLER stuff and she finds herself always wanting more. (Sound familiar, anyone?) So one day the “StuffMart” opens, beckoning her to visit and buy all the stuff she wants. On the way there, however, she encounters a little girl who has very little (voiced by the daughter of the creator of the show) but she’s still thankful for what she does have. After momentarily considering the contentedness of the little girl, Madame Blueberry continues on to the StuffMart.

With a few twists and turns to the plot, Madame Blueberry eventually turns from being blue and selfish to having a thankful, happy heart. Very cool!

In between is “Love Songs with Mr. Lunt.” What happened to Larry?! Well, due to the failure of “The Song of the Cebu,” Archibald the Asparagus has picked Mr. Lunt to sing love songs. The result? A love song to a cheeseburger. HA! It’s a hoot, as usual. So I STRONGLY recommend “Madame Blueberry” for your kids (and maybe you, too). Laugh, cry, get a good lesson from it. :)

Larry has a new toy, a really cool jeep that you can drive around. But he won’t be happy until he gets the camper for it. So Bob asks if getting the camper will make him happy. Larry thinks about it and says, “well then I would need to get the dirt bike, jet ski, etc.” Indeed, we all tend to want more than we have or really need. But the good news is that the French peas share a story about Madame Blueberry who has lots of nice things, but wants more making her very blue. …The lesson to be learned by all in this video is thankfulness. Madame Blueberry has several opportunities to learn this. In the end, she learns that “stuff” does not make you happy. But a thankful heart can. However, you will enjoy experiencing her learning process… as most lessons worth learning in life, aren’t learned without trials… Again, Big Idea has done an excellent job on the animation. It is truly spectacular, Toy Story quality. The songs were well done as well. Overall, a very enjoyable learning time for all. For us older kids, see if you notice Madame Blueberry’s hair changing colors.

Tim Emmerich